Maker Faire 2013: Glove-Controlled 3D Printed Robotic Hand

3D printing is allowing for faster and cheaper robot prototypes. Check out this nice arm and hand that is controlled wirelessly via a glove.

Robot arms are always fun to play with. Unfortunately, you usually have to use a pretty messy interface to control them. For example, on most robotic arms you have to pre-program movement in code. Not exactly enthralling, is it? If you're lucky, you'll have a joystick and maybe some buttons to work with.

One group of students, in an engineering club, is exploring different ways to control them. In this example you can see a robotic hand that has individual finger control being manipulated by a young man wearing a glove. On that glove is mounted an Arduino with Bluetooth attachment that allows for wireless communication. You can see that there are four sensors for detecting the position of the fingers. The thumb appears to be functional as well, but seeing the sensor is difficult in the video.

As Eugene points out in the video, this robot has been fairly cheap to build, so far, due to the fact that much of it is scavenged. 3D printing has allowed for them to build a shell and hand mechanics that look great as well as function smoothly. They have future plans of creating the rough upper torso of a human with the correct accessories for control. This means that ultimately you would control arm movement as well. Eugene also points out that they plan on implementing a helmet system to complete the telemetry device.